He should not have known her?
by NoOneWouldListen
Summary: Captain Wentworth's reflexion when he is introduced to Anne Elliot for the second time. Based on the 2007 adaptation's scene.


_**Author's (brief) note: **__Hey! That's my first posted text on FF! Please, please tell me what you think! _

'Oh, Captain, this is my elder sister, Anne!' Mary added quickly, following his stare.

Oh, he well knew who it was! How could he not? He had known since he had first laid eyes on it who was showing her back to him. It was mortifying in a way, how easily he still recognised her. As if they had parted only the day before. He had forgotten how Kellynch looked, couldn't name the first sailors who were under his command when he had joined the Navy, after his ill-fated visit to this manor, nor did he remembered most of his other crews. Yet he knew her at once, even when she retreated as she did now, turning her back to him, and looking as though she was trying to will her body into disappearing.

Upon hearing her name she had turned and bowed. He glorified himself to see that he was able to return her courtesy with far more countenance than she had displayed. To her account, she hadn't had to endure the compassionate yet mostly annoying questioning of well-meaning brother and friend. She hadn't had to hide her sorrow to the people who knew her best. She had had only to hide from her father and sister, who had both been so blind as to not see her joy in the first place, when it gave her even more beauty than the one she had once displayed.

As to now, he couldn't help to notice how these eight years spent apart had changed her. Her beauty of old was still there, if one looked for it well, but it was hidden by a new pallor, and her traits seemed heavier, as if she had endured much during the past years.

He registered all these changes with his first glance at her face, cursing his mind for summoning so eagerly the image he knew of her to compare to the one that was in front of him. Yet he didn't dwell upon the acknowledged changes until he was finally alone in his bed, safe from all curious eyes. How could she have changed, aged somehow, so much in eight years? Eight years surely was a long time, he was the first to agree to it – especially when spent counting every day, as he had done, each passing day bringing the same hurt, the same longing, requiring the same strength of character not to head back to her and offer his heart and soul once more.

He had told Mary he would have hardly known her. Of course, this was a lie. Had she altered twice – nay a hundred times – as much as she had, he would still have known her at first sight. He feared this would be his burden to carry all his life long. Yet she _had_ changed, way much more than any other of his acquaintances, male or female. What could have been her life, during those eight fatal years to bring such an alteration in her? Upon considering her new image, he understood what had so shocked him when he had laid eyes on her for the first time since their broken engagement. It wasn't that her traits were heavier, no. They were just as fine as when he had first known her. They didn't lack finesse but life. Eight years ago, she had been a lively woman, always smiling, wearing a joyful countenance whenever he saw her. Now, it seemed as if joy had deserted her completely, and her traits, because they weren't stretched into a smile, gave her once beautiful face a grave air and a heaviness that made her look even older than she was.

When had it happened? What great sorrow had turned the beauty of his memory into this grave and pale ghost? His pride, and maybe some well-concealed revengeful part of him, wished it was the same than the one that had tortured him every day and night since their last goodbye. His heart wished it wasn't. He didn't love her anymore, nay! He had fought for eight years against his love for her and he had won. He would still know her better than any of his relatives, and would wear this curse as another battle wound, but he was done with loving her. Yet, he still cared for her enough to wish she hadn't been submitted to the same agony than the one he had endured.


End file.
